Tomorrow or Wednesday. I wrote part if it this morning.
Thank you!
The Fellowship was perfect, the other two, less so.
Not really a goosebumps kind of person, but my inner twelve year old had the biggest grin in existence at the shot in FOTR where the fellowship passed one by one through some standing stones on a hill, while the main theme swelled in the background. THAT was the Lord of the Rings, that shot right there.
I enjoyed the other films, but they didnt have the same effect as the FOTR did, and I still wish that ROTK had included Gandalfs stand-off with the witch king, with the sound of a cock crowing rising up to become the horns of the Rohirrim.
By Boromir’s death scene, do you mean just the bit after Aragorn beheads the Uruk leader (but not including the fight), or the whole bit starting with Boromir arriving to save Merry & Pippin?
Because, either way, I love the scene, but I really think you have to include all of it.
God, I love Sean Bean’s performance as Boromir. It really makes the whole movie for me.
Never read the books before or after seeing all the films so seeing each one and not knowing how everything would unfold was a great experience.
The first one completely had me sold on the entire premise and I was hooked.
The second was excellent too in the same way as Empire Strikes Back. It was filled with dread and hopelessness. Sauron’s entire motive for the battle of Helm’s Deep (not to win but to kill every single human) and the goodguys being so outnumbered gave me shivers.
Waiting the year for the final chapter I avoided any and all spoilers of how it ended. The mission seemed so hopeless.
I liked the last one but I actually hated, hated, hated the whole introduction of the ghost army. I couldn’t even believe Tolkien would put such a cop-out element into a story where battles involved flesh-n-blood creatures using sheer force and massive armies with classic weaponry. The magic elemements up to that point were so subtle yet powerful that fighting ghosts seemed to come completely out of left field. So while Jackson did an awesome job with his source material I felt the source material to be a let down.
I’ve never read the books. TTT wins for me, if only because of the Ents. The shot of the Ent putting his flaming head out in the water that is sweeping away legions of orcs is perhaps my favorite moment of the entire series.
Fellowship is focused on the hobbits, and as such is my favorite of the books and my favorite of the movies. As the story broadens out into the vast sweep of armies and lost kings and becomes more epic, it becomes less interesting to me. (Don’t jump all over me, I love the books, I’ve read them perhaps a dozen times; I’m only saying “less” in a comparative sense.)
I guess I need to rent all three movies and have a “LOTR” weekend. That should take ~10 hours. My girlfriend will be overjoyed.
It always annoys me when people refer to TTT and ROTK as “sequels”, or anything else that makes them sound like 3 separate movies. LOTR the movie, like the book, is ONE movie presented in 3 parts. It got separated in order to be more manageable in marketing and consumption (and to maximize profit), but was written and filmed as one whole piece. The scene with Gandalf checking the archives of Minas Tirith for the history of the One Ring was about 20 minutes into FOTR, but was one of the last sequences filmed, since it was done along with the rest of the Minas scenes.
Also, a big reason everyone keeps mentioning the death of Boromir as being what make FOTR their pick…but bear in mind that was in the opening chapter of TTT (which is a change made for the film which I actually agreed with). Just goes to show that the line between the 3 isn’t that thick.
That aside, most of the goodness of the 3 parts for me was in FOTR, although I think a big part of that was the wow factor for me. By the time I saw TTT and ROTK, I was already used to the fact that they pulled off a live action LOTR, and pulled it off well.
That’s a perfect example the movie-craft which oozed out of every pore in FOTR, but was greatly lacking in the last two films-and that’s a direct result of the harried editing schedule and the need to cut down hours and hours of film into something watchable on a very tight deadline. There were many such missed moments in TTT/ROTK-the most lamentable was a shot of Treebeard drinking his draught, and the drops glitter in the moonlight as they fall. A perfect cinematic moment, and it didn’t make the cut. But I don’t envy PJ trying to hack out a workable film under the pressures he endured.
But, in general, in terms of what to leave in, what to take out, what to add, PJ did a fine job overall. I’m currently towards the end of reading Fellowship-and frankly there were only a few instances where I think he should have kept something in from the books. But frankly (donning flame-retardant underwear), Tolkein had something of a tin ear for dialogue, and tended to make his characters rather long-winded, when the same thing could be said much more succinctly. If PJ had copied a lot of the original dialogue word-for-word it really would have made things drag (and that’s in addition to unintentional comic moments, like Legolas’ Balrog scream-back at you, MN_Maenad 
). But when I get to the other two books I may end up altering my opinion a bit.
My theatre cheered that moment rather loudly.
Wasn’t that the one shot they used as the teaser shot for the film about a year before it’s release?
Oh yes, but it’s a great shot and really sold me on seeing the movies.
Fellowship of the Ring by a longshot. It has about 1000 times more stuff going on. It also gave us our first glimpse of Tolkein’s world…The Shire, Rivendell, Moria, Lorien, we see all of the most beautiful scenery of Middle Earth.
The other two films are basically two great big battle scenes. The Two Towers suffered greatly from being a story with no beginning **and **no ending. And half of The Return of the King consisted of Frodo, Sam, and Gollum trudging through a dark, filthy, barren landscape.
It’s a tough choice indeed and I keep going back and forth, but in the end I picked Return of the King, extended version. Mainly because of the stunning triumphs for Pippin, Merrie, and Eowyn, which were simultaneously emotionally moving and kickass. Obviously Sam had his big moment to shine too, but apart from Sean Astin’s excellent acting I didn’t have as much invested in Sam’s arc. Legolas and Gandalf get some terrific moments too. And Frodo. Poor, heartbroken Frodo.
Of course, it has to be the extended version, so that we get the extra scenes of the lovely Faramir and Pippin bonding, which makes Pippin’s song particularly painful.
TTT comes a very very close second – really, it’s a photo finish. TTT has the best opening ever, and has Gollum’s intro (as a real character, not just the glimpse we see of him in FOTR), plus the glory that is Helm’s Deep.
FOTR didn’t have the same impact on me, though keep in mind I came to it tabula rasa – I’d never read the books. I admit I found it difficult to follow at times (if anyone remembers my huge-ass thread from last year, I asked tons of questions that I should’ve been able to figure out myself…) Anyway, since then I have fallen in love the movie, especially Boromir’s arc. But it lacked the emotional oomph of the others, which is only natural since I didn’t know the characters nearly as well.
All in all these are terrific movies and saying that any of them came ‘third’ is no insult.
The Two Towers, because of:
- Gandalf’s epic battle with the Balrog
- The Last March of the Ents! Maybe my favorite part of the entire trilogy. Treebeard was perfect.
- Gollum: I wasn’t sure how they would pull this character off, but I left the theater amazed.
- Eowyn
The Fellowship of the Ring. It is the only one that was actually a good standalone movie without relying on having read the books. The second is the most interesting but is a bit of a mess a a movie and the last is just pointless onanism from someone who knows all the theatrical version need be is a three hour trailer for the nine hour special edition DVD.
That line was horrible. It misunderstood the point of the restoration of the divinely ordained line of the king, and the rule of law, and frankly, Merry and Pippin did not deserve such an honor.
Personally, I liked FOTR best, and the extended version. It captured the magic of being in Middle Earth best, and it was excellent. I didn’t care for TTT nearly as much, and I disliked ROTK. The changes from the text were useless and annoying. If forced to for time constraints, I too would have cut out Tom B and the Barrow Downs, but I always read them carefully when reading the books. I’d like them as outtakes or an extended edition.
Really? All gave some and some gave all, and all that, but they accomplished huge things with relatively small tasks.
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Pippin “summoned the balrog” that eventually led to an upgraded Gandalf. (Ok, that’s lipstick on a pig, but it’s still true).
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Gandalf might have been able to take out Saruman on his own after he was reborn (we’ve sen before that a white wizard can best his subordinate, but barely), but by orchestrating the destruction of Isengard they certainly made his job a lot easier and freed up his time for better things. Not sure anyone else could/would have motivated the ents.
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Pippin overcame Denathor’s security and got Rohan into the fight. Since nobody knew about the invincible, green ghost army, Rohan’s moral and combat support was critical to victory at Minas Tirith. But for this, Aragorn would be the king of a pile of white rubble.
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Merry gets double ep for directly assisting in the destruction of The Witch King whom, you’ll remember, kicked Gandalf’s ass and is purported to be Sauron’s “deadliest weapon.”
I dunno, they were very much like “small stones that starts an avalanche.” Aragorn knows who put him in the Big House.
:eek:
You mean Pippin did not deserve such an honor, methinks. Heir to the Thainship or not, he was always just the drummer.
But yeah, the two younger hobbits roles, however valiant, pale in comparison to Frodo & Sam’s. (Until the Scouring, that is, at which point they do all the heavy lifiting.)